g 10. Stakeholder & Learning Organization Nets
| SUMMARY of TD10: Stakeholder (Mason & Mitroff) work is now being linked to the new fashion of Learning Organization (e.g. Peter Senge and Edgar Schein) and Knowledge Organization Knowledge consulting. |
| Similarities to other TD
methods:
Dissimilar to other TD Methods: |
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Learning OrganizationAdvanced Level - PhD. Postmodern Critique of Limits of Stakeholder Models |
main site http://web.nmsu.edu/~dboje/TDgameboard.html
Here the focus is on the Stakeholder and Learning Organization work that is Transorganizational. The section is divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced level theory on the relation of narrative and stakeholder theory as it applies to learning organization. return to index main Narrative/Stakeholder text
STAKEHOLDER METHODS
BUREAUCRACIES (Abstract,
Codified, Undiffused)
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MARKETS (Abstract, Codified,
Diffused)
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FIEFS (Concrete, Uncodified,
Undiffused)
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CLANS (Concrete, Uncodified,
Diffused)
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a) identifying the purpose to be served;
b) framing the power-field around that
purpose -- those who have control, influence and appreciation relative
to the purpose;
c) selecting those with the most influence
relative to the purpose (stakeholders) from the three circles and designing
a process of interaction between them; and
d) facilitating a self-organizing process
which ensures that the stakeholders:
As the planet spirals ever deeper into social and natural disaster, with all things becoming ever more tightly knit into the tentacles of global capitalism, there is an urgent need for new maps and compasses to help steer us into a viable mode of existence. Karl Marx's 1843 call for a “ruthless criticism of everything existing” has never been more urgent and appropriate, but all too often today critique is merely academic, stratospheres away from concrete action and progressive social policies. Yet, social critique and change in the slaughterhouse of capitalism needs to be guided and informed by powerful descriptions of what is--the degraded forfeiture of human potential in a world where over a billion people struggle for mere existence--but also by bold new visions of what can be, imaginative projections of how human beings might harmoniously relate to one another and the living/dying earth.
Where some people concede defeat, some declare this the best of all possible worlds (I'd hate to see the worst one), others announce the end of history (Fukuyama and Baudrillard), and others still continually settle for lesser evils (i.e., the neoliberalism of the Democratic Party), one of the first conditions of change is the realization that things could be otherwise, that humanity has choices, and, indeed, that we are currently at a crucial crossroads in the history of the earth where what we do or fail to do in the next few decades might decide the ultimate outcome of all advanced life on earth. One of the major crises today is a crisis of the imagination. In the tradition of neo-Marxism, and the work of thinkers like Murray Bookchin, it has been recognized that so-called “utopian” visions are not, when authentic, starry-eyed dreams of (soy)milk and honey meadows, but rather are empirically grounded in actual social tendencies and potential for a rational, egalitarian, and compassionate mode of life. For such utopians, the “ought” can become an “is.”
In his new book, Which World? Scenarios for the 21st Century, Allen Hammond offers some significant visions of such future worlds. Hammond is a senior scientist and director of Strategic Analysis for the World Resources Institute, which bills itself as a non-profit and non-partisan policy studies center based in Washington, D.C. A prolific writer of books and scientific articles, Hammond received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard. For such a quantitatively trained thinker, he is to be commended for his ability to integrate science and theory, facts and politics, and analytical and visionary thinking.
Which World? stems from Hammond's involvement in a the “2050 project,” a five-year-long research program of ecology and sustainability organized by the Brookings Institute, the World Resources Institute, and the Sante Fe Institute, involving dozens of scholars from around the world. The project advanced a “systems theory” view which sees societies as systems that interact with one another and the earth in complex ways, the effects of which ultimately are unpredictable. The project attempted, in physicist Murray Gell-Mann's phrase, “a crude look at the whole,” studying the interactions of numerous factors--demographic, technological, political, cultural, and environmental--that constitute societies and shape their future outcomes.
Drawing from this project, Which World? attempts to map how such dynamics currently operate in various regions of the planet, how they interact in the global economy, and it seeks to project various possible outcomes of current social processes. The emphasis here is on possible because, in line with his systems theory approach and the science known as “chaos theory,” Hammond insists that while current trends may predispose societies to certain outcomes, these futures are too complex and contingent on uncertain variables for exact prediction.
This means that however things are presently constructed, they can be deconstructed and reconstructed by human beings in different ways. It means, moreover, that whatever futures might be likely or probable, such as one of global social and environmental collapse, it can be anticipated and prevented in favor of quite different results. The important point is that unless we first imagine various futures, both good and bad, and utilize socially progressive and ecological visions as ethical and institutional maps, we will have nothing to guide us in the constitution of a viable future, and we will travel in time like lost seafarers. To begin marking the signposts, Hammond argues, our first task is to examine long-term trends in various regions and the globe as a whole.
Hammond is a sharp, dialectical thinker able to hold simultaneously in his mind both the negative and the positive, seeing how we are barreling down the road to hell, but also how other paths open at our current developmental crossroads. Specifically, Hammond envisages three main possibilities for humanity: we can journey into the Market World of untrammeled capitalism, the Fortress World of social collapse and authoritarian control, or the Transformed World of benign capitalism that prioritizes social justice and establishes a rapproachment with nature. If the menu of options seems slightly limited, something like what a steakhouse offers a vegetarian, it is, for it fails to consider a Left or anarchist vision of a revitalized socialist economics.
In its interesting design, Hammond's book begins with the importance of constructing stories or “scenarios” as critical maps of the present and guideposts for the future. He then broadly describes the nature of the three worlds/roads he believes face us in the current crossroads of social evolution. Finally, he applies each scenario to various regions of the world, always with a close eye on how each region interacts with the global economy as a whole, and how social development is inextricably bound to the ecological systems of the earth. Specifically, Hammond studies crucial regions such as Latin America, China and Southeast Asia, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, North America, Europe, and Japan.
Thus, the regional and the global, the social and natural worlds, are theorized together as one system, but with different outcomes available to society and nature, depending on the wisdom and effects of human choices. In each region, Hammond advances an empirical analysis of current trends relating to issues such as population, economics, and technology, and from there imagines three possible futures such trends could foster. The scenarios are highlighted with italics and read with the immediacy of vividness of the morning paper. In confronting these imaginary outcomes, one can easily imagine being in a different future, with all the repulsion or joy (or skepticism) this experience may bring.
The first scenario Hammond investigates as one possible future is the Market World. As championed by entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and political conservatives and liberals alike, this world is an extension of current capitalist globalization dynamics. The idea here, as trumpeted ubiquitously in the media, is that free markets and technological innovation can bring peace, prosperity, and stability to nations around the globe. With the development of NAFTA, the loans of the IMF, and the computerization of the planet by IBM and Microsoft, this capitalist utopia will bring the dream to as many people as possible.
This scenario asks us to believe in trickle-down economics theory on a global scale, even though so far it has not worked in any single country. Conspicuously absent from the Market World vision is a keen appreciation of the environmental toll global consumerism and prosperity would involve. To the extent such problems may be anticipated, thinkers from this paradigm hold they will disappear with a wave of the magic technofix wand, whereby some technology or “revolution” or other (like the celebrated “green revolution”) will save the day--and hopefully the whales too.
Should this future fail to materialize, should its technofixes, tepid reforms, and free market voodoo prove unable to solve the world's problems, Hammond shares the fear of many others that something like a Fortress World will come about instead of the Happyville of the Market World. On this scenario, tracing another possible outcome of contemporary dynamics, Hammond projects how the growth of the market might fail to bring greater prosperity to anyone but the elite, such that the intensified class differences and social insecurities could bring a Hobbsean war-of-all-against-all. This would be an inverted Market World characterized by “islands of prosperity, oceans of poverty” (Madhav Gadgil). As social insecurities advance, armies of the disaffected would arise. Here, as Hammond describes, the dark side of global capitalism would emerge, leading to greater worldwide poverty, a growth in social instabilities and violence, and environmental ruination and collapse. In such a volatile state, society may become militarized, where the elite use whatever means necessary to defend their property and privileges. Looking at countries such as China and India, Hammond finds that current trends make this scenario possible.
But if, for Hammond, the PR of the Market World is too optimistic, the autopsy on the Fortress World is too pessimistic. Hammond believes that current trends could lead to still another possible future--the Transformed World. Here too, capitalism makes good on its promises for greater peace, prosperity, stability, and environmental protection. The main difference between the Market World and the Transformed World is that this third future is created out of the realization that an unfettered marketplace and unregulated technological innovation alone cannot bring social and environmental progress. Rather, on this vision, progress requires some form of deliberative and democratic shaping of economics and technology, more participation from citizens, and a different set of values that overcomes the pathologies of competition, individualism, and greed in favor of more communal, cooperative, and “spiritual" outlooks. Sheer quantitative change alone--more production and more technology--cannot bring about the kinds of qualitative changes Hammond thinks are necessary for a truly Transformed World.
Looking at current trends, Hammond finds evidence that present tendencies could evolve into the Transformed World. Among other things, he cites the emergence of a variety of local democratic cooperatives and grass roots organizations, numerous projects for urban renewal, a peaceful transition of power from whites to blacks in South Africa, the spread of the Internet and new possibilities for communication, new partnerships between environmental organizations and corporations, a new concern for “sustainable development” and the environment in the corporate sector, increased philanthropy, world environmental conferences such as occurred in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and a more effective U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Hammond makes it clear that he intends these three possible futures to be ideal types. “In reality,” he argues, “the world in 2050 is likely to contain elements of all three scenarios ... [b]ut the scenarios nonetheless provide a convenient shorthand for widely held but contrasting visions of human destiny.” While the future is yet to be invented, Hammond usefully underlines the available resources for progressive social change, for a world in relative harmony with itself and its natural surroundings. Whatever happens in any country or region, Hammond is quite clear that different national and regional fates are intertwined; in the world of NAFTA, the economic and political systems of all countries is so interlocked that “global destiny depends on regional choices.”
Hammond is well aware that current dynamics could unfold in catastrophic ways. He points, for example, to gradual destruction of the rainforests; the reality of global warming; the impending doubling of the human population; the growing diminishment of useable land and water supplies; the aging and economic strain of advanced industrial societies; in addition to the rise in crime rates, the global arms market, and the number of diseases afflicting human beings. To Hammond's list we could add the resurgence of fascist ideologies in the U.S. and Europe, the technocratic takeover of universities and resulting instrumentalist myopia, ecological troubles in China (as a fifth of the world's population begins trading in its bicycles for cars, its rice paddies for hamburger patties), a portentous economic unravelling of Russia, attacks and counter-attacks in the “new war” of terrorism, nuclear saber rattling between India and Pakistan, and the worldwide rise in meat consumption that exacts a huge toll on animal life, human health, and the world's environment.
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